In this blog post ACRN contributing editor Patrycja Szarek Mason examines the European Union's anti-corruption policy in light of the unfolding economic crisis. She gives us an understanding of the context in which the EU's anti-corruption policy has developed, the measures taken so far and the gaps that still remain in ensuring that anti-corruption can be a safe-guard against future economic crises.

We are very happy to announce the results of the 2011 ACRN Research Paper contest. This contest aims to give young scholars an opportunity to take up the challenge of filling important knowledge gaps, present innovative approaches for measuring and understanding corruption and showcase new findings on what works and what does not in tackling corruption. This year’s competition was intended for young scholars who are graduate students, post-doctoral fellows or scholars who have completed their PhDs within the last three years. The contest was made possible by the generous contributions of Transparency International, the Quality of Government Institute and the Institute for Security Studies.

How significant are the corruption risks within the European Union? What are the main gaps in the anti-corruption systems of European countries? What needs to be done? These were the main questions posed by a pan-European evidence-based advocacy initiative against corruption carried out by Transparency International over the last 18 months. This article summarises the key findings of this project.

In this blog post ACRN contributing editor Matt Jenkins tackles the topic of mentalities in early modern England. He focus on the work of Dr Aaron Graham and his research on how corruption was conceptualised at this time.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and the World Bank Group provide survey data about the ‘business environment’ in 27 Central European and Post-Soviet countries and Turkey. The questions - answered by domestic firms - focus on issues such as: business regulation, taxation, law and order, the judiciary, infrastructure and public administration corruption. Data is availble for years 1999, 2002 and 2005.

The primary World Bank collection of development indicators, compiled from officially-recognized international sources, the World Development Indicators (WDI) is the World Bank's flagship statistical publication and establishes the benchmark against which development progress is measured. This 15th edition of WDI in its current format, aims to provide relevant, high-quality, internationally comparable statistics about development and the quality of people’s lives around the globe. It focuses on the impact of the decision to make data freely available under an open license and with better online tools. The section introductions discuss key issues in measuring the economic and social phenomena described in the tables and charts and introduce new sources of data. It includes more than 900 indicators in more than 90 tables organized in 6 sections: World View, People, Environment, Economy, States and Markets, and Global Links. The data includes national, regional and global estimates.

'The Russia Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) is a series of nationally representative surveys designed to monitor the effects of Russian reforms on the health and economic welfare of households and individuals in the Russian Federation. These effects are measured by a variety of means: detailed monitoring of individuals' health status and dietary intake, precise measurement of household-level expenditures and service utilization, and collection of relevant community-level data, including region-specific prices and community infrastructure data. Data have been collected 18 times since 1992.'
This longitudinal survey could become a valuable source of information for researchers working on the problems of petty corruption in healthcare in Russia. The section 'Medical services' of the Adult Questionannaire in almost all the waves of the survey includes a big range of questions on informal payments for healthcare.